On Sunday, October 8th, Ellen and I took turns driving to the Grand Canyon. Geez, what a drive! After a great dinner looking at the sun set over the Canyon, we nestled into our room at the Yavapai Lodge and organized our gear to hike from the South Rim to the North Rim of the canyon.

We grabbed the first shuttle to the South Kaibab trailhead in the dark the next morning. The trail, although desiccated by mules, was stunning as we descended and watched the sunrise. My knees weren't too happy, but I was ecstatic.

After descending about 5,000 ' we crossed the Colorado River and made it to Phantom Ranch right at noon. Were we ever in luck, the temperature down there had dropped about 15 degrees since the week before.

From there the trail followed Bright Angel Creek in a rather pleasant level-ish manner for a while, but the party had to end sooner or later. What goes down must go up, and the North Rim of the GC is 1,000' higher than the South Rim.

One of the elements of a hike like this is that one group tends to leap-frog other groups, and in this way you become a sort of "family" with other hikers. As we neared the N. Rim I really slowed down and Ellen got ahead. Then I caught up to one team, then they passed me up. I gave them a message to tell Ellen that I was on my way. When I topped out at the Rim, lo and behold, an ice chest of cold beverages was waiting for me! Better yet, the good soul gave us a lift to the cabin that Ellen had reserved for us, two miles up the road!

Once again we had a great dinner and nightcap and prepared to hike back to the South Rim in the morning.

The van dropped us off in the dark again, and we began to trek down the trail. It was just a reverse of the way we came up, only the view was entirely different.

We had lunch again at the bottom of the Canyon. Then after some really screwy route-finding we made our way up the Bright Angel Trail, different from our route down into the Canyon. We crossed the big river on a different bridge and once again we went UP!

We arrived at the South Rim just at sunset, and much to my amazement, there were saints at the top handing me a cold celebratory beverage again! Total miles in 2 days: 44. Total elevation gain (and loss) about 11,000 feet.